TCM 101
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In TCM’s long course of development, it has absorbed the quintessence of classical Chinese philosophy, culture and science and summarized the experience of the Chinese people in fighting diseases. This experiential evidence as a basis of TCM has resulted in a totally different medical theory compared with western conventional medicine.
TCM believes that the different characters of herbs are employed to treat diseases, rectify the hyperactivity or hypoactivity of yin or yang and help the body restore its normal physiologic functions. All herbs possess four natures and five flavors. The four natures—cold, hot, warm and cool are summarized mainly from the body’s response after Chinese herbs are taken, which are so defined in relation to the properties, cold or heat of the diseases treated.
In addition, there are also some herbs known as neutral ones, whose cold or hot nature is not so remarkable and whose action is relatively mild, but these herbs still have differences in their tendencies to cool or warm so that they are still in the range of four natures.
The five flavors are the pungent, sweet, sour, bitter and salty that can be tasted with the tongue. With the development of the theory dealing with the medicinal properties, the flavours could best be described as abstract concepts, as the flavor definitions have arisen more from observations of the clinical actions of the herbs than from the taste sensations.
Most herbs contain a combination of a number of flavors, for example ‘bitter with sweet and pungent’. The nature and the flavour are two kinds of medicinal properties that every Chinese herb possesses. Modern scientific research has been undertaken on the four natures since 1960, mainly in China and Japan.
There are two main research areas on the four natures. The first is pharmacodynamic research, exploring the effect of cold and hot herbs on central nerve transmitters, sympathetic-adrenomedullary system, prostaglandin and endocrine system.
The second is substantial foundation research, including chemical components and especially trace elements. Some innovative research was from biophysics and biochemistry to study the natures of Radix ginseng, Folium ginseng, Flos ginseng and Radix quinquefolium using a microcalorimetry method.
Herbs of different natures and flavors exhibit different effects and are categorized differently in terms of yin and yang. Chinese herbs are also mainly classified on the basis of their function in theory and in the clinical setting.
For the circulation-related herbs, they are classified as:
function 1— drugs whose principal effects are to stop internal and external bleeding
function 2— drugs that make free the passage of blood in the vessels, promote blood circulation and disperse blood stasis
function 3— drugs that nourish the blood and are indicated for syndromes of blood deficiency
function 4— drugs with the effects of dispelling pathogenic heat from the blood systems
These theories are the essential basis for the analyses and clinical usage of Chinese herbs.
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